Librarian on Location: Live Blogging 4-23-08

2:15 p.m. Finally, back on the Librarian on Location beat after weeks being preoccupied with Are You As Smart as A Freshman? (see below). I am located at my favorite spot so far - the Soda Shoppe. Good location to talk with professors and students are still in academic mode when they walk by me as opposed to being in social life mode at places like the cafeteria and the dorms.

2:21 p.m. Spoke with a professor face to face who had requested a journal in which he was a contributor. I was able to explain the accessibility of the journal without the confines of the email medium. Face time makes a difference.

2:31 p.m. More professors. One wanted to drop off his papers for me to grade. Now there is an idea. Trading jobs with professors. The librarian grades papers while the professor handles research needs. I wonder how that would work?

2:50 p.m. Whenever I am "On Location" I work on Library 2.0 things like wikis, blogs, tagging, etc. I consider this program kind of a Library 2.0 exercise so I think it relates. I am going through The 23 Things and 5 Weeks To A Social Library.

Are You As Smart As A Freshman?

I haven't been able to post much lately and have neglected some of the Librarian on Location duties so that I could organize and put on the second installment of Are You As Smart As A Freshman? Similar to the TV version - Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?, our game has upperclassmen contestants competing for prizes with the help of Freshmen. It has been great fun and positive for the library.

If you have attended any library conferences in the past year you know that Gaming is certainly a buzzword among librarians. I have had trouble understanding the significance for libraries beyond the value of offering an up-to-date entertainment and information medium. Also, I haven't seen any real relevance with offering Gaming opportunities in the academic library setting except on a special event basis. But wouldn't Student Life do a better job with this than the library? So here is where our game comes in.

When we started this we had two goals in mine. 1) To offer information literacy in a fun and creative way. 2) To portray the library as a lively, up-beat, and exciting place. I believe we have accomplished the first goal by reaching more students who would have never come to our old Library workshops. After each answer in the game, a brief Did You Know? library resource fact related to the answer is displayed on the game screen and mentioned by the host (me). We also have fliers that list the Reference Desk contact information.

The second goal is my favorite one to try to meet. Is there a more stereotyped institution in our country than the library? Television has portrayed the library as either this exciting place to learn, read, and discover for kids(watch any PBS Kids show block and count how many times "library"is mentioned) or a hum drum, stuffy, bookish bore where only nerds hang out (the most common adult portrayal). Which portrayal do you think most college students identify with? Both probably and that is the problem. In their mind, libraries are for kids or for geeks but not for a young adult chasing a career, a date, and a social life.

The value I see in our game is the reality that something exciting, slightly edgy, and enjoyable can happen within the walls of the library. Hopefully this begins to crack the iron curtain of misconceptions about the library and tells students that to set foot in the library is not stepping foot into a boutique for only the literati, teacher's pets, and anti-social book rats. In some ways I think we have succeeded.

Use of Rollyo

I have been playing around with Rollyo and love its simplicity and usability. I could see this being useful with consistent problem research questions. For our library these questions are often literary criticisms about poems or novels that are less known then the classics. Also, psychology is often a hard topic to find full text articles in. Rollyo could provide a supplemental search after the school's database has been exhausted. I have used something similar through Google but found it kind of a hassle. Rollyo's ease of use makes it a much better choice for me.

If you want to see an example of a customized Rollyo, here is one that I created for the Dallas Mavericks.

Library Thing

Library Thing has been fun to play with over the last few months. Here is a link to my library. Of course this is not all of my library but it represents the most recent books I have read. If you use Library Thing, send along a link to your library. I love to browse.

I tried to include a cool widget on the blog that would show the book covers that are in my library but I couldn't figure out where to paste the widget html. If any veteran bloggers could assist me I would greatly appreciate it.

Image Generator

I played around with an image generator found at Big Huge Labs which says that it is the home of fd's Flickr Toys. One of their tools allowed me to Warholize a photo I already had in Flickr. You can see the result on my profile information. This was really simple because of the simplicity of Flickr and the automatic nature of Big Huge Labs.

Librarian on Location: Live Blogging 3-26-08

1:15 p.m. Set up in the campus cafe. Last time I was here the wireless connection didn't work but it seems to be working now. I am not so sure about this location. If I come to early I wouldn't be able to find a seat, if I come to late no one is here. We will see. I tell people that we are simply testing this program out and will make changes accordingly if we even decide to continue. Right now, based on the conversations I have had when I have gone on location I think this could work sooner rather than later.

1:27 p.m. I have put out a new sign. Instead of the sign that says "Librarian on Location" I have put out a sign that says "Need Research Paper Help? Ask Here". A little directness never hurt anything.

1:35 p.m. One idea that I have heard related to this practice of "on the road" librarians is to set up in specific departments instead of more social environments. I have heard of some librarians who have done this with some success. This may be a better strategy because you can work with the departments to promote your visits. Also, you can build relationships with individual students who see you on a regular basis. Right now, I am in mostly social areas like food locations and dorms.

2:00 p.m. A student told me that she does need research paper help but she is working right now. Her initial question was more of a writing center question but she took our brochure and my card and I told her the hours in which the reference desk is staffed. Our writing center has talked about doing something similar to Librarian on Location. Maybe this would be a great way for the library and the writing center to team up.

Librarian on Location: Live Blogging 3-19-08

2:15 p.m. We have come full circle. Instead of going to the ends of the campus we decided to choose four or five prime locations and just rotate through them during the semester. This is the second time that I have been to the Soda Shoppe on the top floor of our building. Instead of the other places that I have been which were more student life locations, this location is an academic setting with classrooms all around and faculty offices down every hall. The last time I was here I had some great conversations with both students and faculty. Hopefully, today will be more of the same.

2:30 p.m. One of our student workers had a great idea for Librarian on Location publicity. She suggested that we put out a sign that says "Research Paper Help". Simple and obvious right? This is officially term paper season and if you have students who have these assignments on their mind when they walk by you what better way to make it obvious what you are able to do for them.

2:37 p.m. My eavesdropping skills are in full force today. A female student just walked by and I over heard her ask another student. "Is the library open on the weekends? I was just wondering because I have only been to the library like twice." The funny part is our library isn't in its own building but a part of a three story complex that includes classrooms in the basement and on the top floor. This student probably has walked through the library on the way to class several times. Is the library just a hall or walk way to her?

2:42 I am doing this with a heavy heart today because our Director of Library Services, Peggy Martin, passed away over night from a combination of pneumonia and pulmonary fibrosis. This is stunning to us because her sickness wasn't prolonged. She was a great servant librarian, a creative idea person, and a encouragement to all of us.